


Calling Out Your Name

by SegaBarrett



Category: Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac (Music Video)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Life Imitates Art - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: It can be hard to remember who you are, sometimes. Especially when you don't know quite when you are.
Relationships: Book Club Girl/Guy in Book Club, Fair Maiden/King
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Jukebox 2020





	Calling Out Your Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StopTalkingAtMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own this song or video and make no money from this.

Once upon a time – that’s how every story starts, isn’t it? And that was the phrase that Dina, inexplicably, was turning over in her head as she awoke one morning, caught on a loop that she couldn’t quit break. She went to work like normal, came home like normal, and puttered around the house as normal, trying to find something to do as the last few weeks had been bereft of anything that called to her. Her friends were all down the beach and she had gone to all of the local stores so many times that she was afraid of being called out to her face if she stepped into Food Lion the third time this week.

Her phone rang, and she picked it up like normal, pressing it against her ear and inquiring, “Hello?” 

“Hi… How’s it going, Dina? This is Donald… You know, from…”

“From Book Club,” Dina blurted, a little two quickly. She had given him her number, yes, but then she had kind of forgotten about it. There had been too much jumbled in her head… “It’s good to hear from you. It’s still scheduled for next week, isn’t it?”

“At eight, I think.”

“Oh, that’s great. Maybe Amy will have shrub again this time.”

“That shrub was really exciting, wasn’t it? Can you believe Ben Franklin drank that stuff?”

Dina let out a nervous laugh and then hung up the phone, before chastising herself: way to go, Dina. Your ability to speak to any other member of the human race is clearly lacking. 

She would just have to try again at Book Club, wouldn’t she? She liked Donald – who went by Donald, anyway, and not Donnie or Don or something like that? What, was the guy out of the 1950’s or what?

She had decided she was going to dub him Donnie Darko and then decided against it a moment later. Too… something.

Too everything.

***

“Well, I personally don’t think that the book really rang true to me at all.” Danica, one of the members of the Book Club, had taken a seat at the edge of the leather couch and was talking, and had been, but Dina couldn’t really focus for long. Where was Donald-Donnie-Don, anyway? And why did she care that much? “I mean, I think the fantasy elements were nice, right, but I think they lost me on some of the transitions…”

“Yeah, I felt like they would be in one place, and then suddenly they would move to another place…” 

Dina stretched out her leg, rolling her foot slightly and beginning to lose track of what anyone was actually saying. She had missed her chance. 

The door cracked open, and she noticed one of the cat, a big, fat, gray cat, shuffling over to greet someone at the door.

“Hey,” Donald called, and Dina looked over at him and smiled, probably looking like a huge dork. Maybe he would sit here, she wondered, or maybe she had already scared him off.

“Hey,” Dina replied, her mouth opening wide and she must, must, must be looking like a big old dorky jerk, she was sure of it.

“We should read this book next time,” Donald said, and Dina had missed the segue and maybe there had, in fact, been none after all, but a huge volume came crashing down out of Donald’s hands and fell, as if by magic, hit the floor and opened to a page, one in which a meticulous and exuberant illustration of a king adorned each of the pages.

And then everything went back.

***

Dina pressed her hands into what felt like dirt and rose, grimacing. What the hell had happened? The last thing she remembered, she was in the living room, but here she was, outside somewhere.

She rose from the ground with some difficulty, looking down to brush the dust from her… maroon dress? Well, she definitely hadn’t been wearing that when she had been in Book Club, that was for sure. It would have taken her hours to put on something like this, even with someone around to zip up the back. Was she dreaming? 

It did feel like one of those dreams, the type that someone gets caught in and feels as if they’ve had before, the kind that feels like it has preamble and… 

“An announcement! The king has an announcement!” a voice declared, and Dina looked up to see a man on a horse holding what seemed to be some kind of olden-time bullhorn, but why?

People’s heads were turning, and Dina wondered if she had somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up at the Renaissance Faire. She was okay with that – she could always go for a big turkey leg or a pickle on a stick – but it still didn’t make much sense.

A shadow crept underneath her, and she looked back up again at the man with the bullhorn. 

“I present… the king.”

Dina looked up, and rubbed a hand over her eyes. She thought that she must be seeing things at first, that she had bumped her head and was hallucinating, but she had no other explanation. There he was: Donald from Book Club, with a crown on his head and a long black beard besides.

“His highness,” the bullhorn guy said, “King Donatos of Maureenia.”

Dina bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say or do, but standing where she was had just resulted in a blonde woman jostling her to the side to get closer to the sight of the king. 

She lifted her hand up, trying to catch Donald’s – Donatos’? – gaze without calling attention to herself to anyone else – who knew, there could be some reason someone might try and kill her. If this was time travel, it could be dangerous after all.

The king looked back at her, and something akin to shock picked up in his blue eyes. That was it! Maybe he remembered who they used to be, and he had the key of getting out of here.

Maybe that was too much of a rush, but she couldn’t stick around here for long… right? There had to be some kind of fragile fabric at work here. Or maybe she was having a nervous breakdown, always a possibility. Maybe there had been something in the shrub.

But she would probably need help to figure it out, and the King – was she really going to keep thinking of him like that? Apparently so – might have an important piece of the puzzle.

Or maybe she just thought he was still cute in that moustache. 

“Hello,” the King said, cutting through the crowd and giving half-waves to the people who attempted to crowd him, before he arrived at Dina. “Hello, my… fair maiden. What is your name?”

“My name is Dina,” Dina managed. Was it just her, right now, or did he seem taller? Maybe he had always been this tall, and she just hadn’t noticed until he had a crown on his head and he was… right next to her. Looking at her. She couldn’t help but feel a little faint as she looked at him, trying to figure out what to say.

“You are the most beautiful girl in all the land… Dina.”

The sound of galloping interrupted whatever he was planning to say next, or whatever she had planned for her reply to be. 

She looked up to see a horse stop right in front of her, and a man wearing a tri-corner hat hopped off the horse and looked between them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, your Highness, but the Duke of Willougby has made his demands. He wants an answer by nightfall… he said, by the time that the hourglass runs out.”

“Or else?” the king replied.

“Or else, he will destroy this entire village. We must act now and launch an offensive, or else… we may all be lost.”

“I must go,” Donatos said, and Dina wasn’t really sure what possessed her to say the thing that she said next. It didn’t make sense, but then again nothing really made much sense at all. She had to go by feeling alone.

“I’ll help you.”

***

Dina watched as Donatos pressed a gold coin into the hand of a young boy.

“I need you to slip past the guard and give this message to the young Earl of Chester, for he is held captive by the Duke. We will mount our escape before the hourglass runs out. We will meet him, and we will bring him to safety. But he must be at the window when he sees the sign. My lady, Dina, will light three candles in our own window. No more, no less. And when he sees those flames flicker, that will be the time that he will meet us. That is the time when he will be free.”

Donatos turned and reached out his hands, holding two candles in one grip and a single in the other.

“Will you light these?”

“But how will I know when the time is right?” Dina asked. She tried to grip the version of her that had been – hadn’t it been? But it was hazy, hard to remember. Hadn’t there been another her a long time go? 

“I believe in you, my love. I know that you will know.”

And then, Donatos leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, soft and scratchy and sweet and far, far too short.

Because a sinking feeling in Dina’s stomach, a hard jab to her heart, made her realize that she would know. Yes, she would.

***

She was looking into the mirror when the soldiers burst through the door. She had been wondering at those memories at the burned off and frayed edges of her mind. Was she correct when she wondered if there had been another version of her?

She looked at her reflection and let out a sigh – it was pointless. Whatever she had wished for, wondered for before, all that was meaningless now and the only thing that mattered was this rescue, was winning this battle. 

And then the door had blasted open, a loud bam bam bam, and the mirror shattered.

***

She was tied to the chair, brain screaming, firing off every synapse as she tried to figure out how to get out of this – because there had to be a way out of this.

_Love will always find a way._

She could remember a voice telling her that, though she couldn’t identify time or place or person. And right now she didn’t need quotes, didn’t need sayings – she needed a plan, because if she didn’t light those candles, Donatos was heading into a trap, and the Earl would never be saved and – hell, she might never see him again.

And she realized in this moment that if she lived in a world where he didn’t, she didn’t know if she could take it.  
She wiggled a hand, trying to center her breathing, trying to slip a single hand out at a time. To find a way to be subtle, to get to… one hand around one candle. 

No more, no less, but one candle was just going to have to be enough, because that was all she could do.

And trying to get it sitting in the window for long enough for anyone to actually see it wasn’t going to happen, either. Dina would need to improvise.

She outstretched her hand to the fireplace and slid the wick down as far as she could go – maybe she could move a little closer and – 

The flicker lit up the room. She wondered what her face looked like.

“Hey, the hell are you…” one of the soldiers began. 

She crooked her arm and whipped her hand back as hard as she could – 

And all the world went up in flames.

***

“Dina! Dina! Hey… what’s going on? Are you okay? You just started screaming!”

Dina’s eyes flung open and she stared around, spotting the maroon carpet first and then Danica’s concerned face. She extended her hand and slowly lifted Dina up.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m fine… I was just…” Dina began. It was already hazy. It was already forgotten.

“I probably shouldn’t have thrown this book at you,” Donald quipped, leaning down to grab it, “Not the best first impression…”

Dina leaned down and got it first, flipping it open.

“It says this is based on a true story,” she said, running a finger down the words, slightly raised, inside the first page, “Love and espionage and death and tragedy.”

“Sounds like life,” Donald agreed. “Should we read it next?”

“We should,” Dina agreed. “But…” She rubbed at her eyes. “Would it be weird if I called you Donatos?”

He shrugged.

“If you let me have that last shrub, then Donatos it is.”


End file.
